N1-54: Nick Valentine
by Falloutthoughts
Summary: The story of Nick's escape from The Institute with the aid of a single kind soul. A young deaf girl who sees more in him than a failed experiment.
N1-54, project terminated. Damning words if ever they'd heard them.. It was the final order. The team was disbanded hence forth and the synth unit would be disassembled for parts.

She rushed down the halls, the guards calling out to deaf ears as they saw her moving far too quickly within the confined walkways of the Institute.

She had seen them through the glass window. Had been watching their lips closely from her adopted balcony as her father and the other team leaders had met with the director and knew they were now being debriefed on some new gen 3 project.

Tears pricked at her eyes but none of the scientists made more of a glance towards her to notice when she'd entered the series of testing and observation rooms. Her presence was so often found there now and her father being the head of the team gave her tolerance for being there if not permission.

N1-54 looked up as the sliding panel in his chamber opened, the only window to the outside world coming to view and within it a familiar face though one full of pain he could see.

'Are you alright?' he signed sure this was a day like numerous others – another child had been cruel to her or the adults refused to take her seriously. It was a shame. She was both sweet and bright from what he learned of her. He frowned as her head shook slowly, her hand raising to wipe away some of the tears before she signed back to him.

'No.. They are-'

He waited, his head cocking to once side – curious. 'They are-?' he asked.

'They are ending your project." She let her hands fall to her sides. This 'machine' had been the only person she'd really been able to talk to for years yet she couldn't find a way to explain. How do you tell someone they're going to be dismantled?

There was a long pause as the synth studied her. The scientists put his lack of responses down to failure. Suspected that because he did not react in gesture or expression that he felt nothing on the inside but she knew better. He was thinking about it and studying her to try and work out what it her words meant. He'd never been outside so he always had the bare minimum to work with but he was very clever, she knew that. But the adults would never listen to a child 'pretending to be a scientist.'

'What will happen to me?' he signs eventually and she feels the pain in her chest swell once again.

Unable to reply her hand lifts to lay flat against the glass and she looks to him through the tears.

Her gaze told him everything and his head lowered as he tried to process this new set of sensations within him. He had never felt them in such extremes before. Was he broken? Was that why they were ending their work with him?

The feelings where unpleasant and they made him want to run. But, there was nowhere to run.

The girl turned her head as the doors behind her slid open and an irritable voice demanded she move away from the window. She made her wordless protests but her hand was snatched and the window began to slide closed again.

She looked back but he did not look up from where he stood staring at the ground. Before the panel hid him from view she saw the subtle sign he made almost to himself.

'I don't want to die.'

She wasn't talking to her father. She knew it wasn't his fault but he could have at least tried to save her friend – whom he deemed unhealthy. His words stung. 'You need to mix with real people your own age more', he'd said. Like she hadn't tried.. No one even tried to talk to her back..

I don't want to die… Only a thing aware that it was alive could make a statement like that she was sure. But again, no one would listen.

She sat in her bed refusing to sleep. If they wouldn't listen and they wouldn't help her then she would just have to do things herself!

Throwing back the covers she moved out of her room and snuck to her secret treasure chest. This wasn't the first time she'd tried to get N1-54 out of his test chamber. Once she'd tried to take him to school and another time to bring him home to show him what coffee was and why it was smelly. She'd gotten caught both times and thrown out of the sector for it.

This time she couldn't be caught! She had to get him out and she was sure she would. She had collected everything she needed in the week approaching the project's final day as all the scientists emptied their desks and signed off their research notes.

Her bunny slippers made for effective sneaking shoes – or she guessed they did. She couldn't hear them herself which made spy work difficult when you didn't know if you were being quiet enough but she'd successfully snuck up on mum, Doctor Phil and that grumpy security guard in them so the results where there.

Being small helped matters as she crept her way to the testing chambers. She'd done this part hundreds of times instead of doing her chores. It was the easy part.

A pilfered ID card saw her access to the rooms – once she found a way of reaching the mechanism.. and looking around inside she barely recognised the place. It seemed so empty now..

Panic filled her. She hoped they hadn't taken N1-54 away yet also!

She ran to his little room and with a box stood up to the door where the card slot waited her father's pass. She noted his surprise when the door opened though to all others his face would look as emotionless as ever.

A question left his fingertips and she grinned back at him.

'Jail break!' she told him excitedly.

He was nervous. How could they break out? He didn't know the outside world and his only accomplis in this was a child of perhaps 9..

She did not appear so hesitant however. She hopped off of her box moving swiftly. 'Bend down,' she told him.

He did looking at the chip she held in her hand. He looked to her again with question.

'I found this,' she explained. 'Ages ago. He has your name. NI-VA. It'll take a while for these memories to kick in but when they do you'll know all about the outside world and so you'll be able to live there.'

She seemed proud of herself for the idea and he had to admit, it sounded interesting if terrifying. He allowed her to place the chip in his head and felt his mind click as the download began. Flashes and instances darted across his vision but rather than sit and process this information in the way he knew he should do he felt her hand tug at his arm.

'Come on I need you to move something for me!'

His mind in no single place he simply did as he was told, rising to his feet and allowing her to pull him to an area further down the hall.

There was a crate there full of things he had never seen before but knew immediately looked like himself. Only, they were still and unresponsive.

'This one," she signed to him touching the deactivated synth. 'We need to put this one in your chamber so they'll think it's you.'

Flashes of cars racing at high speed with sirens blurring. The clanking sound of a metal fork against the bottom of a plate of food. The touch of a lover's hand against his cheek..

N1-54 blinked and shook his head looking down to the tugging at his hand.

'Come on we don't have much time!' the girl signed urgently and he nodded moving to lift up the empty synth. He carried it all the way to the chamber he had called home for years and placed it there, sat in a corner.

More images and flashes jumped his reality and sensations such as tastes and smells he had never experienced before overwhelmed him for brief moments. All the while he was vaguely aware of the girl, his friend, and her urgency.

She pulled him back down the hall to the crate.

'Get in there and pull one of the others on top,' she told him. 'These are going outside. Don't move or make a sound and they'll not notice you.'

He looked to her, struggling to focus on the here and now. She looked… sad. And now that he thought about it, he felt sad too. Very sad and he wasn't sure what that meant.

He did as she told him and made sure he was hidden within the crate. He could see out through a small gap between the metal skeletons and fiberglass shells. She was writing something down on a scrap of paper. She handed it to him and he took it.

'Good luck. I love you," she told him. This left him with another sensation to think about. A warm one this time, in his chest area.

'Thank you,' he signed back as best he could beneath the pile. 'Friend.'

She smiled then and backed away. She didn't come back and he was left to himself. He didn't know what was going to happen but he knew his friend, his first and only friend, had saved him from death somehow.

In the dark and the quiet his mind finally closed off to his surroundings to download the seemingly endless streams of information and data from the chip she had installed. The data that would apparently help him in his new life.

Amber eyes opened and he looked around. When did he get outside? What… happened?

He felt his heart clench with panic and fear. Ruins! The whole C.I.T building was in ruins! Had they been attacked? He'd just finished his Neuro-transfusion. The doctor had thanked and dismissed him.. He was about to return to the locker rooms and then..

He couldn't remember..

He stood up and almost screamed out in horror. His body! What!? What happened to his body? Where were his clothes and-oh God.. his.. his HAND! Metal, and .. and gears!?

He felt the need to draw deep breath but there seemed no possibility to do so, his lungs felt so strange…

Dazed and confused he called out in the hopes that anyone might respond and give him answers. He steps would take him far and, eventually, he would come across the 'Great Green Jewel' that he would learn to call home.

Meanwhile, in the ruins of the C.I.T building, a note lays forgotten for the man with a future but no past.


End file.
